For most people, just getting to co-host Live with Regis and Kelly is an honor on its own, but when Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Anne Inaba was filling in for Kelly Ripa on Thursday March 30, the experience turned extra special.
The morning started innocuously enough, with an interview with the most recent Dancing With the Stars contestant, radio host Mike Catherwood, and then moved on to reading some viewers mail, but it was when Regis bean reading a letter from a man looking for proposal advice that things got interesting.
The letter was from a gentleman looking to propose to girlfriend of two years and wanted to know how to go about popping the question. Then while the audience looked on and viewers at home watched, the lights dimmed, music began to play, and Inaba looked genuinely out of the loop.
Jessie Sloan, Inaba’s boyfriend of two years came onto the set and went down on bended knee.
“I just want to find the words to express what you mean to me,” he said while America watched live. “You’re an inspiration. You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful. You’re everything to me. Will you marry me?”
The 43 years old Dancing expert burst into tears when presented with a Princess cut diamond solitaire engagement ring and excitedly replied with a yes.
Fireworks went off in the screen behind them, the audience cheered, and Regis beamed in the background.
But the show must go on, and Inaba pulled herself together and toasted champagne with the show’s other guests, Howie Mandel and Jake Gyllenhaal, before the couple shared a kiss and left the studio hand-in-hand.